**Must-Read:** Michelle Bachelet was a minister in the Chilean government--first Health, then Defense--from 2001-2005, and President of Chile over 2006-2010. So why this from Martin Feldstein? **Martin Feldstein**: [Chile’s Uncertain Future](http://equitablegrowth.org/?p=14932): "Chile’s excellen...

"And commercial banks really do not want to sock their depositors with unexpected fees"
BWAHAHAHAAHAHA!
Wow Brad that is a good joke there! Of course banks use unexpected fees. Lock in with a bank is real. do you want to go and change your autopay every month? Banks compete for deposits on rates and "free" checking and then hit customers after lock in.

[**Over at Equitable Growth**][1]: Commercial bankers, you see, are not *rentiers*. Rather, they are intermediaries. And they are intermediaries who find an economy in which interest rates are likely to kiss the zero lower bound a very difficult environment in which to operate. Thus if I were a c...

I am wondering if at this point the Fed is playing the political calendar more than the economy. The Fed doesn't want to take action during the election season, so that rules out doing anything between February and November of 2016. Which means they want to get raising now. Of course this also means that when the raising of rates causes the economy to slump, they won't be able to lower rates to avoid "playing politics" (but of course keeping rates too high would be "playing politics" as well but in the opposite direction). So the Fed might cause a slump, delivering us President Trump. Won't that be swell?

**Must-Read: Carmen Reinhart**: [Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture](http://equitablegrowth.org/?p=13168): "At the end of the day, the US Federal Reserve... >...will base its interest-rate decisions primarily on domestic considerations. While there is more than the usual degree of uncertaint...

Huh? The Martin article actually says that Moore probably wasn't on the call while the Lind article thought he was. It was bad at the Vox job of summarizing what others actually reported (and that's ignoring calling Moore just a "think tanker"). The only reporting in the Vox article comes from Liz Mair's twitter feed. The first tweet listed: "Moore has a reputation as a very credible guy who doesn't bullshit or lie. Walker is under pressure on imm issue bc of flip-floppery." Anyone who says Moore is credible is either an idiot or a liar and should not be used as any type of primary source. And that is before we get to Mair's past with the Walker campaign.

Can anyone explain how the ECB which allowed purposefully allowed a bank run to happen is not being crucified? A central bank has one job above all others, stop bank runs on solvent but liquidity constrained banks. The ECB purposefully caused a bank run by refusing to do so.

[**Over at Equitable Growth**][1]: A "non-post" because I do not think I know enough to have an informed view... For one thing, I must confess that I do not understand how the Greek crisis wound up in its current state: Back in 2010 it seemed very simple. [**READ MOAR**][1] [1]: http://equitabl...

Why are we not treating Walker's utterance as the dog whistle it is? It is not an economic argument (like the guy who is cutting income taxes while killing unions, gutting education, and raising tuition cares about income inequality). Walker is running against men named Rubio and Cruz. Add in the ethnicity of Jeb's wife and what we have here is easy to see.
Walker is probably upset right now that he did fire those in his administration who openly said racist things. Amazing how they kept on just showing up.

**Must-Read: Noah Smith**: [Scott Walker, Labor Market Protectionist](http://equitablegrowth.org/?p=11144): "Walker may have accidentally given away the game... >...many immigration opponents... want to reduce the inflow of legal immigrants.... This is a bad idea.... Limiting the inflow of immigr...